{"id":394415,"date":"2025-11-21T10:17:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T10:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/394415\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T10:17:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T10:17:23","slug":"roger-federer-responds-to-novak-djokovic-inviting-him-for-a-drink-he-doesnt-know-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/394415\/","title":{"rendered":"Roger Federer responds to Novak Djokovic inviting him for a drink – ‘He doesn’t know’ | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Big Three spent almost two decades battling it out for the biggest titles in tennis. Now, with Roger Federer<\/a> and Rafael Nadal<\/a> already retired, Novak Djokovic<\/a> is the last man standing. Although the Serbian superstar is still competing, he\u2019s already planning to catch up with his old rivals and has, on multiple occasions, shared his wish to sit down and have a drink with both men<\/a> once he has also retired.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s now received a response. Federer, who ended his career at the 2022 Laver Cup and is now set to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, is more than happy to have a Big Three reunion over some drinks. But the 20-time Major winner has reminded Djokovic that he still \u201cdoesn\u2019t know\u201d what it feels like to reflect on their rivalry with the added perspective of being retired.<\/p>\n

Djokovic recently picked up his 101st career title in Athens and shows no sign of slowing down. While he\u2019s still competing on the tour, the current world No. 4 doesn\u2019t like to look back on his achievements and would rather wait until he has joined Federer and Nadal in retirement.<\/p>\n

Speaking at Wimbledon earlier this year<\/a>, the 24-time Grand Slam champion said: \u201cI don’t reflect fully on everything I have been through. I would like to, but I think that\u2019s going to come probably when I set the racket aside and I sip a margarita on the beach with Federer and Nadal and just reflect on our rivalry and everything!\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the first time Djokovic had invited his biggest rivals for a drink. \u201cI do wish to have a drink or two with them and just open up and talk about the things that annoyed everyone about me! Or vice versa, whatever it is. Let\u2019s just put it all out there,\u201d he told GQ<\/a> ahead of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

Federer, who was the first of the Big Three to retire, has now revealed that he\u2019s happy to accept the 38-year-old\u2019s invitation. The Swiss star ended his career at the 2022 Laver Cup when Djokovic and Nadal were his teammates, and played his final match in doubles alongside Nadal.<\/p>\n

However, more than three years on, Federer believes that Djokovic, who is still playing, and even Nadal, who retired a year ago, have yet to reach a point where they view their rivalry from a new perspective.<\/p>\n

Asked whether he could imagine sitting down with the multi-Grand Slam champions and talking it out, the 44-year-old told Tages Anzeiger<\/a>: \u201cSure. Rivalries like that create a huge bond. I see it very differently today than before, with much more distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cNovak doesn\u2019t know what that\u2019s like yet. Rafa is slowly getting there. When you\u2019re still playing, you can\u2019t think about it the way I do today. The more time passes, the less you identify yourself as an individual player and the more you see the big picture. What\u2019s funny is: Someone might have taken something totally personally\u2014and you can\u2019t even remember it anymore. I\u2019m definitely up for sitting down together and talking about the good old days.\u201d<\/p>\n

The old rivals have already caught up a few times since retiring. Federer and Nadal played golf in Mallorca earlier this summer, while Federer, Djokovic and Andy Murray<\/a> all attended a special ceremony to honour Nadal\u2019s career<\/a> at Roland Garros in May. But it looks like a real catch-up could be on the cards when the Serb says farewell to professional tennis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Big Three spent almost two decades battling it out for the biggest titles in tennis. Now, with…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":394416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[187223,9125,3886,13158,62,1464,10119,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-394415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-big-three-tennis","9":"tag-novak-djokovic","10":"tag-rafael-nadal","11":"tag-roger-federer","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tennis","14":"tag-tennis-news","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115587176706468654","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}